Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media report them inadequately. We blog here because our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, New York, Madrid, London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening and why. This ongoing war is killing us.

Thursday, September 11, 2014

11-Sep-14: Freeing terrorists: The price in human lives lost and in justice perverted keeps getting clearer

Regular
readers of this blog probably know that, in our eyes, the posts we publish are more than mere reflections on events. Beyond the aspect of
memorializing our daughter's life, we are engaged here in an impassioned
and ongoing cry from the heart against terrorism and those who do it while
drawing attention to its impact on the victims.

None of these matters, we have
learned from painful personal experience, is well enough understood. This is
especially true of people holding high public office and those who advise them.

For
the past several years, a recurring aspect of our writing (and public speaking) has been our efforts to
give rational, respectful expression to some of the deep bitterness we feel
about decisions taken by a series of political figures on both sides of the
Atlantic to free convicted murdering terrorists. (Clicking on articles with the labelsPrisoners, Shalit, State Department and Tamimi in this blog will quickly bring up
some of the posts we mean.)

Our
position can be summed up in a single short paragraph that we wrote here a few
months back:

Freeing convicted and unrepentant murderers
has predictable and very negative outcomes. No politician should ever
again dare to deny this. Nor may they ignore the moral,
constitutional and legal consequences that flow from this truth.

In it, we referred to three
young Israeli yeshiva students - Naftali
Fraenkel, 16, from Nof
Ayalon; Gilad Sha'er, 16,
from Talmon; and Eyal Yifrach, 19, from Elad. Their kidnapping, the search for their
whereabouts and for those who snatched them from a hitch-hiking post at night,
and the subsequent revelation of their cold-blooded murder, elicited deep
concern, energy, unity and prayerfulness on a scale that was almost without
precedent in modern Israel's history.

A journalist, Avi Issacharoff from Times of Israel, had found, and we re-posted, that a central
figure in that terrorist outrage, a man called Mahmoud Ali Kawasme is
one of the Shalit 1,027. We noted that his premature and unwarranted release, like
that of every other terrorist - including our daughter's murderer - freed in
that deal at the time, was the result of a monumentally successful act
of extortion directed against the Government of Israel. His freedom
had been conditional on his being "exiled" to the Gaza Strip, and to
his refraining from further involvement in terrorism. Instead, he became deeply
enmeshed in the Hamas terrorist organization after walking from prison,
eventually taking the role of funder and planner of the attack in which the
three Israeli teens unwittingly accepted a ride in a stolen Israeli vehicle in
which Palestinian Arab terrorists masqueraded as Jews at one of the roadside
stops in the Jewish community of Gush Etzion.

Two Arab men remain as of today the subjects of an ongoing manhunt for the kidnappings and
murders. They are Marwan Kawasme - a member of the same clan as the
ring-leader - and Amer Abu Aysh. Issacharoff
has today revealed further aspects of the same kidnap/murder.

In a fresh Times of Israel expose ["Hamas higher-up in Gaza pulled trigger on teens’ abduction"] published last night, Issacharoff says that
although the Hamas leadership repeatedly denied any involvement in the
kidnapping and murder of the three boys, key officials in the military and
political parts of Hamas

knew
about the plans in advance and had approved similar activities. Abed
a-Rahman Ghaminat, one of the heads of a cell in Zurif [near Bethlehem] was
the Hamas military wing’s appointed leader over the Hebron area... [Times of Israel]

Like Mahmoud
Ali Kawasme, Ghanimat (his name is sometimes written as Ginat, Animator Ranimat, and in Hebrew as עבד א-רחמן ע'נימאת) was released from an Israeli prison
in October 2011 as part of the infamous Shalit Transaction. He had been
sentenced to a lengthy term for his involvement in several murders. Among them:

The abduction
and murder of Sharon Edri. On September 9, 1996, the 20-year-old IDF serviceman disappeared after leaving the Tzrifin army
base late at night en route to his home in Moshav Zanoah. Soon after
his disappearance, the Red Cross offices in Gaza and Jerusalem
received anonymous calls saying he had been captured and killed
by Hamas. His
body was found seven months later, in April 1997, near Zurif, the home town of this Ghaminat/Ghanimat/Ginat/Animat/Ranimat [2005 Ynet report].

Issacharoff
notes that the killer he calls Ghanimat, like many others freed in the Shalit Transaction, promptly embarked on a fresh phase in his career as terrorist. He:

joined
a special office under the Hamas military wing in Gaza, which operated under
the leadership of the Turkey-based Saleh al-Arouri, one of the heads of the
organization living in Ankara. The office hired several of the exiled prisoners
to oversee the terror cells in the West Bank. Working from Gaza, Ghaminat was
responsible for the Hebron area, along with another ex-prisoner released under
the Shalit deal, Ayed Dodin, a Hamas man and resident of Dura, south of Hebron... Traveling through Egypt, the two also visited Turkey and Qatar more
than once in the past two years to coordinate the Hamas schemes with Arouri, as
well as with other political heads of Hamas living abroad. According to
the Palestinian sources, Mahmoud Kawasme [the other Shalit Transaction graduate
we mentioned above and here] worked under Ghaminat (sic) in Gaza.

Had he remained behind bars (as Israel's legal system had determined he must) and not been given the priceless gift of undeserved freedom in 2011 by politicians, could this brutal man have engineered the murders of the three young men mourned by an entire grieving nation?Arising out of this, we make two requests.

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About us

THIS ONGOING WAR is not part of the activity of the Malki Foundation which was founded by us, Frimet and Arnold Roth of Jerusalem, on September 9, 2001. But it is inspired by the same tragic circumstances. The Malki Foundation (also known by its Hebrew name: Keren Malki) is a memorial to the life of our daughter, Malki. She's in the photo below this paragraph. Malki was murdered at the age of 15 in a massacre in the centre of Jerusalem carried out by Hamas.

Beyond its function as a remembrance of a beautiful life, the foundation provides tangible, concrete, invaluable support daily to several thousand Israeli families from every part of the religious and socio-economic spectrum: Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Druze and others who care at home for a seriously disabled child.

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Good for the soul | The Malki Foundation

If you care to make a positive and constructive contribution to the care of Israeli children with special needs - whether they're Christian, Moslem, Jewish, Druze or unconnected to any particular faith community - you can't do better than direct your donation to the work of the Malki Foundation.

It's the charitable organization we, the bloggers who produce This Ongoing War, established in 2001 in memory of our murdered daughter. Her name is Malki.

Keren Malki (in Hebrew, Keren means 'foundation' or 'fund') is efficient, effective, non-sectarian, non-political and unique in the good work it does. Thousands of families from every part of our richly diverse society here in Israel have benefited in concrete and meaningful ways. Donations to Keren Malki are tax-effective in Israel, Canada, UK and the United States.

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This Ongoing War: About this blog

Many people lack a factual understanding of events in our region because the media often report them inadequately. Our daughter Malki, murdered at the age of 15 in a restaurant massacre in Jerusalem, was a victim of jihadist hatred and barbarism. For jihadism and terrorism to end in Israel, in New York, in Madrid, in London and everywhere else, people first need to understand the scale on which it is happening. This ongoing war is killing us.